Endorsements from top GOP brass likely for Bevin, but he needs to work on donors, Scott Jennings says

Scott Jennings may have spent months in 2014 running ads defending U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell as he faced Matt Bevin in the primary, but come 2015 with Bevin as the likely GOP nominee, Jennings is promising his support.

“I’m going to vote for Matt Bevin; I’m going to vote for the entire Republican ticket,” Jennings said in an interview with Pure Politics on Thursday.

Even though Bevin opted to not endorse McConnell in the 2014 general election, Jennings said he expects McConnell will endorse Bevin in the 2015 race.

The outcome of the GOP gubernatorial primary is still up for deliberation as the State Board of Elections prepares to recanvass the razor-thin, 83-vote victory for Bevin.

Jennings knows McConnell. He was the six-term incumbent’s political director during McConnell’s 2002 campaign, senior advisor in the 2008 race against Bruce Lunsford, and advisor to two pro-McConnell PACs in 2014 which fired on Bevin during the primary and Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes in the general.

For Bevin, Jennings said he expects elected officials and other party insiders will “come on board” for Bevin, but what is still unclear is Bevin’s ability to get donors to open their wallets.

“There’s a donor class out there, that for two straight elections has not really shown much interest in donating to Matt Bevin,” Jennings said. “Now, he needs to have conversations with some of those people to bring them in to a larger campaign apparatus, and I hope for him those conversations are going on right now.”

Watch the interview above for Jennings’ take aways on how Bevin became the likely nominee.

About Nick Storm

Nick Storm is the Anchor and Managing Editor of Pure Politics, the only nightly program dedicated to Kentucky politics. Nick covers all of the political heavyweights and his investigative work brings to light issues that might otherwise go unnoticed, like the connection between the high profile Steubenville, Ohio rape and a Kentucky hacker whose push for further investigation could put him in federal prison. Nick is also working on a feature length bio documentary Outlaw Poet: A documentary on Ron Whitehead. Follow Nick on Twitter @NickStorm_cn2. Nick can be reached at 502-792-1107 or nicholas.storm@charter.com.